Blog – DasGoot.co.ukhttp://www.dasgoot.co.uk
Best Price Email SoftwareTue, 23 Jan 2018 09:13:22 +0000en-GBhourly1QuickTip2: Are you paying too much for your Email Marketing?http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/email-marketing/quicktip2-paying-much-email-marketing/
Tue, 23 Jan 2018 09:13:22 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6547The answer, in 96% of cases, is a resounding yes! The majority of people simply click on the top results in Google (usually the paid for ones) and then sign up with the site that has the flashiest design – or even perhaps a monkey as a motto! This is what the masses do. If [...]

]]>QuickTip1: Don’t believe the Hype!http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/email-marketing/quicktip1-dont-believe-hype/
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 16:28:32 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6544Email Marketeers will try to blind you with science, phrases, must-knows, how-to’s and more. Why? They need to justify overcharging you for what is essentially a pretty low cost base service to provide. Email Marketing is pretty simple really. Just ‘talk’ with your customers as if they were stood in front of you. Be polite, [...]

]]>Email Marketeers will try to blind you with science, phrases, must-knows, how-to’s and more. Why? They need to justify overcharging you for what is essentially a pretty low cost base service to provide.

Email Marketing is pretty simple really. Just ‘talk’ with your customers as if they were stood in front of you. Be polite, helpful and informative.

At the end of the day, they and they alone will decide whether to do business with you. Your job is simply to make sure that you’ve put your best foot forward so they have all the information of which to base theirdecision.

]]>The 1 Marketing thing I would do this yearhttp://www.dasgoot.co.uk/email-marketing/1-marketing-thing-i-2016/
Thu, 11 Jan 2018 11:41:36 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6176To do: “A welcome and educational email series” This relates to new customers. Sure, lots of e-commerce systems send them an order confirmation email, delivery confirmation email and so on. But hold on. This is a NEW CUSTOMER ….. they should be treated like the best friend you’ve ever had! …. for as long as [...]

This relates to new customers. Sure, lots of e-commerce systems send them an order confirmation email, delivery confirmation email and so on. But hold on. This is a NEW CUSTOMER ….. they should be treated like the best friend you’ve ever had! …. for as long as they’re willing to be your ‘friend’!

The first time I put in an automated email series system – back in 2001 – I literally could not believe the results.

A few stat’s

Did you know that 74.4% of consumers expect a welcome email? Plus, subscribers who receive a welcome email show, on average, 33% more long-term engagement with that company. Finally, welcome emails generate 4x the open rates and 5x the click rates compared to other bulk promotions!

Here’s the nail in the coffin:

Welcome emails can see more than three times the transactions and revenue per email over regular promotional emails.

Pretty cool, right?

What’s an ’email series’?

Put simply it’s a series of emails from day 1 of a new customer to, well, whenever in the future. I used to set up 2 years worth initially. You set up the whole communication chain in advance and every time a new customer is added to the list, they also join the series.

This becomes your automated sales genius.

You don’t sell in these emails!

The job of a ‘welcome and educational email series’ is to do just that. You can send separate “50% off everything” type promotional emails when appropriate.

Here – I think the best way to think of it – you want to become your customer’s friend. You want to welcome them and then gradually help them out with lots of useful information as well as explaining a little more about yourself – just like you would a real potential friend.

Selling happens automatically – if you’ve done a good job – because they’re now your friend.

What sort of emails would you send?

Here we go again – just imagine you’ve made a new friend. A new potential pal has joined your group of mates who meet up once a month down the pub. What kind of things would you tell them about your company/work over the next 24 months?

You certainly wouldn’t take a suitcase each time and try and flog them something, would you!?

You might tell them about your new building, a new bit of tech’ in your industry that’s amazing, a funny anecdote about one of the staff, a great team building day you went on, etc.

And of course – unlike down the pub – every email you send wants to have the hidden agenda simply of winning a new friend and gaining their trust. That way, they’ll see you as human, approachable, normal and above all ……. “great people to do business with”. Job done.

Resources / How can you get going?

If you’re going to do this, you have to be prepared for a quite a bit of ground work (or to delegate it anyway!).

Writing the emails. Depends on your business really but generally you’d start with 24 emails, once a month. You may well send a bit more frequently at the beginning perhaps after 1 week checking everything went OK for example.

The Email Marketing software. Well, here’s our plug. DasGoot’s Email Marketing Software has all the autoresponder tools (that’s the technical name for it) in to get the job done (as well as all the other usual tools). We’ve priced it to be around 75% lower than the average of our main competitors, so not bad right!

Other software providers are available

Resource. Probably the best article I have ever seen on how to write emails. If you’ve got this far then I’d urge another 10 minutes of reading.

Unconvinced?

Do a quick calculation. If you trebled repeat business from all the new customers you got this year, would that be good!?

]]>Help on getting your Email Marketing to the Inboxhttp://www.dasgoot.co.uk/email-marketing/help-getting-email-marketing-inbox/
Wed, 10 Jan 2018 09:08:50 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6534Email Marketing Deliverability Make sure your email reaches its target A few simple rules to maximise your email’s chance of getting through to your potential client’s inbox. Writing the Email Once you start writing about your own product, it is easy to become effusive about its superiority to the competition and the benefits it offers. [...]

Make sure your email reaches its target

A few simple rules to maximise your email’s chance of getting through to your potential client’s inbox.

Writing the Email

Once you start writing about your own product, it is easy to become effusive about its superiority to the competition and the benefits it offers. Be careful not to use language that is too over-blown or your email may get caught up in a spam filter. Filters work by monitoring the content of emails and assigning each email a ‘spam score’. The higher the score, the more likely the email is spam (defined as unsolicited bulk mail). Users, ie your prospects, can set the level of spam score that they are happy to accept in an email. Here is a list of phrases that will raise your email’s spam score. Using one or two of them in an email is OK, but go overboard and your email will be picked up as unsolicited mail and will not reach the inbox.

“FREE!!!”

“ORDER NOW!!!”

“Special Offer”

“HUGE Savings”

“No obligation”

“Guaranteed”

“Save £££”

“Save money today”

“MASSIVE DISCOUNT”

Multiple use of capital letters, exclamation marks, pound signs and dots to create suspense . . . . .(three dots is grammatically correct) are signs that your email is an advert that overpromises and is thus classified as unsolicited mail.

Linking To Your Website

Do not put too many links to web pages in your email. Two or three links are fine in a short email, but put in more than 6 links and your email’s spam score goes up.Using Pictures & Graphics

If you are using pictures, use them sparingly and try not to send one large picture with only a few words. Filters cannot read words inside pictures, so spammers often try to hide their message in a large graphic. Some filters are set to assume that emails with big pictures and few words are hiding banned content in the picture and are set to reject these emails.

Using Colour

If you are tempted to brighten up your email by using colours on the text, again do so sparingly. Colour does indeed draw the eye, but this is another tactic used by spammers (and sales people) and so some filters are set up to reject emails with multi-coloured writing. Would you send an email to your own MD using red, purple and green text? Probably not.

My Emails Bounced Back – WHY?

Within minutes of hitting send on an email campaign, your inbox will fill up with responses.1 Out of Office – If you receive an out of office reply, this means that your email arrived in the inbox but the person is not sitting at their PC and has not read it yet. This is not a bounce-back, this should be taken as confirmation that the email arrived.

2 Mr Smith has left – a message comes back saying that the person you emailed left recently (usually within the last month) and either that the email has been forwarded to a replacement or gives you an alternative email. Make a note of the new address and send them your e-shot.

3 Undeliverable – Every email that comes back marked ‘undeliverable’ will have an SMTP error code in the text which gives you a clue as to why the email bounced back. A serious digital marketer will get to know these error codes and learn the difference between a ‘soft bounce’ and a ‘hard bounce’. Note that email list providers such as Electric Marketing do offer refunds on ‘hard bounces’ so it makes sense to separate them out and claim a refund.

SMTP error code 4.4.1. Network Issues A soft bounce as your email did not reach its target because one of the servers it passed through was broken. Sometimes the message will say that the server will continue trying to send the email for 48 hours in which case do nothing. If the issue is fixed, your email will get through later. If you get another message after 48 hours saying the server is ‘giving up’, try sending the email to the address again a week or so later. Network issues are outside an email list providers control, so no refunds are available.

SMTP error code 5.1.1 and 5.5.0 Email does not exist (usually a spelling error in the person’s name) or email no longer exists, so the person has left the company. These are hard bounces, completely down to the email provider and worthy of a refund. Gather all your 5.1.1 and 5.5.0 responses together, put the email addresses in an Excel file and send them to your list provider for a refund. Or if you are using an in-house list, get on the phone to the company and find out the correct spelling or name of the replacement person. Your email has not been forwarded to nor seen by anyone at that company.

SMTP error code 5.1.3 Bad syntax in email address meaning that you may have the right address but with a dash in the wrong place or two dots eg jane..smith@electricmarketing.co.uk

SMTP error code 5.4.1 Another hard bounce as the domain name (the company name that comes after the @) is incorrect. Usually happens when a company has recently changed its name.

SMTP error code 5.2.3 The message is too large. Some servers will limit the amount of data on one email, so if say, you have attached a brochure to your e-shot, try changing your message and sending it without a large attachment. You can put in a line saying ‘reply to this email to request a brochure’ and post it.

SMTP error code 5.2.2 Inbox is full. This usually indicates that the person is still working for the company but is on an extended break, maybe a year’s sabbatical or sick leave.

SMTP error code 5.1.5 Too many recipients on the sent message. You have sent the email to too many people at the same company and some servers are set up to reject this. Try sending the emails again to a few people at a time. This is a soft bounce.

SMTP error code 5.7.1 Email access denied. This is a tough one as it means that your email or your email server has been blocked either by the company’s server or by the person you are emailing. If you persist in emailing them over and over, your IP address may be added to a blacklist. Unfortunately the channel of email marketing is closed to you for this person, so send them a letter or get on the phone and try to talk them round.

Scrutinizing SMTP codes will never be the most exciting job on your to-do list, but you can improve your response rates by looking at why your emails bounced back. Change your email heading, alter your copy, use a different image, switch from plain text to HTML, make the email longer or shorter – all these aspects affect whether your email is picked up by a filter or not. Remember that filters are set to different levels from strict to liberal, depending on your target’s personal preference or (more likely) the preference of their company IT manager.

Results

Remember to keep a record of your email campaign results. How many orders did the email generate, how many appointments, enquiries, phone calls. Listen to your prospects when you speak to them. Did they understand the email and did they know how to respond? Were they the right people to contact or did they forward your email up the corporate ladder, sideways to another department or down to a subordinate. Make note of all comments and incorporate them into your next emailing campaign.

One of the best things about email marketing is that different creative approaches can be tested. So if you have two ideas for a headline, try one out on a small proportion of the list and if response is poor, try the other idea on a second batch.

Remember that re-mailing the same list often works well, as long as you are careful to remove the hard-bounces and the people who have already responded.

]]>Are you going mobile?http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/business-advice-articles/are-you-going-mobile/
Fri, 18 Mar 2016 11:21:51 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6224Yes, it sounds obvious to most of us in 2016 but is your business truly ready for a global shift to smart phones and smart devices? Are you missing the trick in one of the biggest business shifts of our generation? Let’s recap… 2007 – The Apple iPhone is released, revolutionising the way we connect and interact [...]

]]>Yes, it sounds obvious to most of us in 2016 but is your business truly ready for a global shift to smart phones and smart devices? Are you missing the trick in one of the biggest business shifts of our generation?

Let’s recap…

2007 – The Apple iPhone is released, revolutionising the way we connect and interact with the world. Only 9 years later 70% of people in the UK own a smartphone. 90% of those under 24 own a smartphone. The smartphone has now overtaken the desktop as the number 1 way to browse on-line. We book flights, shop, bank, watch TV, listen to music, date, socialise, entertain and learn with our smartphones.

Next time you’re stuck in traffic, take a quick look at the car next to you. If there’s more than 1 person in the car, the non-drivers will have there head stuck in there smart phone or tablet. (And in some cases, so will the Driver!)

So, how do we ready our businesses for mobile and smart technology?

1. As a minimum – check out your business website with Google’s mobile friendly test – https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/. If it fails this basic test this means at least 50% of visitors are having a bad experience on your website and you need to get a professional involved to fix this right away.

2. Do some of your own testing. Take some time-out and search for your business on your iPhone or smart phone. What sort of results are you getting in Google? How do you feature against your competition? Are you happy with the words, links and references to your business. Remember – results on a smart phone can be completely different from a desktop. Look at your own website, is it “touch friendly” – do images and text look good? Unhappy with the results – Engage with a professional web team to boost your on-line presence for mobile.

3. Get social. Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and WhatsApp are on the phones of your customers, suppliers and employees. Are you? On the internet, usage between mobile and desktop is roughly 50:50. On the apps above its more like 80:20 for mobile devices. How does your business branding look on these apps? Do you have a company overview video on Youtube? Are you advertising in Facebook? YouTube? Do you have an Instagram gallery of your products in action?

4. Check the email marketing you send. Is it responsive? Does it display well on mobile devices?

]]>11 content ideas for your next Email Marketing campaignhttp://www.dasgoot.co.uk/email-marketing/11-content-ideas-next-email-marketing-campaign/
Fri, 18 Mar 2016 10:30:08 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6222Sat in front of a blank white screen!? We’ve all been there. We want to stay in contact with our beloved customers but what should we send them? Don’t fret. We’ve all been there in the email marketing world, so here’s 11 ideas that could help you out; 1. Repurpose what you already have: Turn [...]

We’ve all been there. We want to stay in contact with our beloved customers but what should we send them?

Don’t fret. We’ve all been there in the email marketing world, so here’s 11 ideas that could help you out;

1. Repurpose what you already have: Turn content from your latest webinar or white paper into something more digestible, like an infographic or blog post.

2. Give subscribers a behind-the-scenes look at your company. This could include a recap of your latest office event, a volunteer project your staff recently participated in, the direction you’re planning on heading this year… you name it!

3. Share a case study that features an awesome client successfully (and happily!) using your product or service.

4. Interview an employee or thought leader from your organization, either in a video or a blog Q&A.

5. Co-market with partners. Share their content with your audience, and have them share your content with their audience in exchange. It’s a win-win for both of you!

6. People respond extremely well to numbered lists, so compile a “Top 10” list of helpful tips or product recommendations.

7. Provide a roundup of your most popular blog posts from the last month and send it out in a digest format in case people missed them the first time around.

8. Say “thanks.” Without any other sort of promotion attached, send a simple and sincere thank you to the individuals who support your brand.

]]>Is Internet Behaviour Changing Around the World and Should You Care? (Infographic)http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/infographics/internet-behaviour-changing-around-world-care-infographic/
Wed, 02 Mar 2016 10:59:18 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6216Last year, marketers and businesspeople around the world saw a huge change in the way people use the internet. Most notably we saw that more people were using their mobile devices to search for things online than on their desktop computers. Which devices are folks using to search the internet around the world? What do [...]

]]>Last year, marketers and businesspeople around the world saw a huge change in the way people use the internet. Most notably we saw that more people were using their mobile devices to search for things online than on their desktop computers.

Which devices are folks using to search the internet around the world? What do social sharing behaviors look like by device? What are some notable global social media trends?

To help us understand how internet behavior has been shifting on a global scale in the past year more than one trillion global pageviews from more than two billion internet users around the world have been analysed to produce the infographic below.

It makes for very interesting reading and may prompt you to have a second look at your web presence.

]]>Tips for designing emails to be compatible for Microsoft Outlookhttp://www.dasgoot.co.uk/email-marketing/tips-for-designing-emails-to-be-compatible-for-microsoft-outlook/
Mon, 01 Feb 2016 10:46:39 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6211The first thing you need to understand when designing and coding for Outlook is that the usual rules do not apply. Forget all your best practices for CSS – go back to 2001 coding practices for an idea of where your head should be. Note that some of these things might work in Outlook, but [...]

]]>The first thing you need to understand when designing and coding for Outlook is that the usual rules do not apply. Forget all your best practices for CSS – go back to 2001 coding practices for an idea of where your head should be. Note that some of these things might work in Outlook, but I advise against them because in my experience they do not work consistently, and it’s embarrassing to get an email back from your client asking why it broke when they sent it.

General “best practices” for Outlook 2007:

Forget about separating content from design with CSS. Build your emails with tables and spacer gifs. No divs.

No background images, only background colors. If you want to have HTML text over an image area, you’ll have to make the area behind it a solid color so you can slice it out of the layout.

You can use basic styles, but use them inline attached to each tag, not in the header. Don’t get fancy – a lot of what works in a browser will not work in Outlook.

Don’t use padding, only margins. Padding does not work properly.

Keep your code as simple as possible.

Optimize your email for ‘images off’ mode, which is likely to be default for your recipients. If you don’t define a height for images, they’ll collapse vertically, moving your text content up. Do specify width though.

]]>Should you automate your Email Marketing?http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/email-marketing/should-you-automate-your-email-marketing/
Sat, 30 Jan 2016 10:31:49 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6209The ability for marketers to contact customers at minimal costs with ever increasing frequency is very attractive. However, a recent spate of reports in the popular press about the volume of marketing material being sent to customers, reflects a growing feeling that people are being swamped. So although it is easy to mass mail using [...]

]]>The ability for marketers to contact customers at minimal costs with ever increasing frequency is very attractive. However, a recent spate of reports in the popular press about the volume of marketing material being sent to customers, reflects a growing feeling that people are being swamped. So although it is easy to mass mail using digital technology, that is not the right approach and in fact is more likely to earn a high level of ‘unsubscribes’ than help to build long and deep customer relationships.

The days of ‘batch and blast’ should by now have been consigned to history, because the ability exists for businesses to build and maintain both customer intimacy and customer loyalty through careful analysis and targeting of messages and incentives to reach the consumer at a timely point that matches where they are in their personal buying cycle. Yet despite the technological developments, and their ability to dramatically improve ROI and customer intimacy, just 15% of email marketers have taken up automation as a primary marketing tool.

In the last five years, we have seen email marketing become the primary form of customer engagement for the majority of brands. And when used across multiple channels, such as SMS, it becomes possible to target consumers with relevant and timely communications that become ubiquitous without being intrusive.

At the root of this new way of marketing lies data. Successful email marketing automation is impossible without a good understanding not just of what data to collect, but also how to manage, collate and update customer information to ensure that every possible source of insight is being captured and used effectively

]]>Free Business Financial Forecast Template in Excel to Downloadhttp://www.dasgoot.co.uk/free-business-tools-downloads/free-business-financial-forecast-template-in-excel-to-download/
Sat, 05 Dec 2015 09:53:07 +0000http://www.dasgoot.co.uk/?p=6062Free 2 year financial projection template in Excel There are lots of times when businesses want to make financial forecasts for the future but it can be a bit ‘finger in the air’ sometimes! Here’s a useful method of doing it in Excel using the TREND function. You enter your sales & costs per quarter [...]

There are lots of times when businesses want to make financial forecasts for the future but it can be a bit ‘finger in the air’ sometimes!

Here’s a useful method of doing it in Excel using the TREND function.

You enter your sales & costs per quarter for the past 2 years and this sheet will calculate sales, costs & profit for the next 2 years, by quarter, based on the historical trend – (only enter data in the red areas of the sheet). It will also produce a snazzy graph.

It may not be perfect (as lots of things can change in business) but at least it’s based on some reality.